LXer: CEO of Mandriva: We will not go to Canossa

LXer · 06-19-2007, 01:31 PM

Published at LXer:

Novell, Xandros and Linspire have signed well publicized agreements with Microsoft. Rumors on the Web have hinted that Mandriva might be next on the list. Mandriva believes in interoperability, which must be based on open standards, like ODF. They also believe that software patent threats are just FUD. So no deal with Microsoft from Mandriva.

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Cogar · 06-19-2007, 06:14 PM

Quote:

So we don’t believe it is necessary for us to get protection from Microsoft to do our job or to pay protection money to anyone.

Excellent.

AceofSpades19 · 06-19-2007, 06:42 PM

yay Red Hat and Mandriva are taking a stand

rickh · 06-19-2007, 06:46 PM

Hmmm! I think we'll soon see MS offering "interoperability" contracts without references to patents. Hard to imagine what other strings may be attached, tho. Maybe support for Microsoft's "Open Standards XML?"

I have very little confidence in Mandriva's willingness to turn down an offer like that ... especially if there was, say, $1,000,000 in it for them ... chump change to MS.

easuter · 06-19-2007, 06:47 PM

Way to go Mandriva!!!

rkelsen · 06-19-2007, 07:29 PM

This is almost poetry:

"We also believe what we see, and up to now, there has been absolutely no hard evidence from any of the FUD propagators that Linux and open source applications are in breach of any patents. So we think that, as in any democracy, people are innocent unless proven guilty and we can continue working in good faith.

So we don’t believe it is necessary for us to get protection from Microsoft to do our job or to pay protection money to anyone."

Emphasis added.

I'm not a big fan of Mandriva Linux, but their CEO has certainly impressed me with these statements.

I hope that the important people in the IT industry pay attention to François Bancilhon's words. Especially the parts about DEMOCRACY and EXTORTION.